Very Gray Matter

Because I’m an old man, I was listening to elevator music at work today and the station played Strangers in the Night. You know, exchanging glances, what were the chances….

But it set off a strange thought progression – remember in grade school when you used to get a little catalog of books that you could order through your class? You’d have like a week to fill out the order form and bring a check from mom, and then like two weeks later the order would show up? This was apparently before bookstores were invented and before the Internets and the Amazon were discovered. Like I said, I’m old.

But I remember one of the books I ordered was a songbook of tunes to play on your touchtone phone. Yes, I was a very strange kid. For example, if you have a touch tone phone or a mobile phone that simulates the touch tones, you too can play Strangers in the Night by pressing:

4-8-8-4-8, 4-8-6-8-4

Of course, make sure you’re already dialed into another working number (preferably a friend who already finds you annoying) or else your Strangers in the Night jam will get you connected to a woman in Poland named Ludmila who is not amused by your serenade.

Then I recalled that you could also order joke books through school and I remember getting the politically incorrect Official Polish / Italian Joke Book one time.



But I digress. I just found it strange that somewhere in my brain there was a dusty old neural pathway making the connection between Strangers in the Night and those stupid books from 30 years ago. The same brain can’t remember to pack a pair of underwear when I ride my bike to work. But I am half Polish, so that might explain it.